The Gilded Madonna by Garrick Jones (ebook reader for comics TXT) 📕

When she took my order and then stuck her head into the kitchen, I couldn’t help but hear her soft, “Dreimal Wiener Schnitzel, Schatzi!”

When she returned and saw the look on my face she asked if I was all right. I couldn’t look her in the eye, but nodded mutely and then sat down at a bench, trying to get hold of myself.

German immigrants were relatively new to the country. When I glanced at her again, I realised she was not much more than a teenager. I gave her a wan smile, and she tipped her head to one side, as if wondering whether she should speak. “You must be very hungry, for three sandwiches,” she said in thickly accented English.

“They’re for three of us; one each. My two friends are at work and I’m taking back our lunch.”

“Ah!” she said and then nodded. She went to the kitchen door and again spoke softly but not so softly that I couldn’t hear. “Machen Sie die ruhig groß, sie sind für drei hungrige Männer …”

A tousled blonde head came into view and kissed her cheek. He smiled at me and then went back into the kitchen to make “extra big sandwiches that were for three hungry men”.

After about five minutes, the young man brought our sandwiches from the kitchen, neatly wrapped in white butcher’s paper, and smiled at me again. Despite me not wanting to, I found it impossible not to see him dressed in Feldgrau, and my gaze instinctively flicked to his shoulder to check his insignia. Even after all these years, the sound of the German language scared me … no that’s not right, it terrified me.

“Everything all right, Mr. Smith?” Ralph, the owner of the milk bar, had appeared from the kitchen, wiping his hands on his apron.

“You bet, thanks,” I said and then took the brown paper bag I’d been offered with our lunch in it. “Looking forward to eating these.” I smiled at them both. It was hard to ignore the pride on the young man’s face. Maybe he was proud of his sweetheart, or maybe I’d been the first to order schnitzel sandwiches today, I wasn’t sure. But his look was kind, nothing like anything I’d ever seen from the Germans who’d “looked after” me.

“I hope you like them,” he said brightly and then held out his hand. “Gerd is my name, and this is my wife Liesl. I put some sliced tomato and … Was ist das englische Wort für Mayonnaise?” he asked, turning to his wife.

“Mayonnaise,” I blurted out. “It’s the same.”

I’d almost spoken in German. We’d learned enough to say simple things. We’d had to, the guards had spoken no Italian and had refused to speak in any other language to us but their own.

“Ah,” the young man said, obviously unwilling to ask how I’d understood. There’d probably be no end of Australians who’d fought his parents’ generation in the last war. He put his arm around his wife’s shoulders and smiled. “I hope to see you again, Mr. Smith.”

“I’m sure you will, Gerd, Liesl.”

I handed over six shillings and then when she went to give me back the change, I shook my head and pointed to the Legacy tin on the counter.

“I’m sorry, Clyde,” the owner said to me, accosting me outside on the street. “They weren’t to know.”

“It’s eleven years since the war, Ralph. All of us need to grow up and try to get on with our lives. They must have been kids back then. Perhaps they had their arses handed to them on a plate by British and American bombers while crouching in a cellar somewhere? Maybe their parents were killed, or shot by Russians, or even our blokes.”

“Jeez, I wish I could think like you, Clyde. I can’t even talk to Chinese people, just in case they turn out to be Japs.”

I sniffed my lunch bag. “Well this smells terrific and if it tastes as good as it smells, tell them I’ll be back. We need to move on, my friend. I don’t know how the hell some of us will be able to, but we all need to try.”

*****

“It would explain why he’s the way he is,” Harry said, after I’d told him what Clarrie’s son had reported about Dioli and his grandfather.

“It makes me feel like shit, to be honest, now I understand. I’d find it hard to believe a beating like that was a one-off thing. Those sorts of abusers go on forever. Dioli’s probably been pummelled since he was a kid. Why else would a grown man put up with it?”

“Probably had the same in his orphanage, Clyde. I served with any number of blokes who were brought up on those homes. The stories they used to tell me. Staffed by sadists and child molesters mostly.”

“Poor bastard. I’d probably be a cranky belligerent arsehole too …”

“What makes you think you’re not?” he asked, kissing the side of my neck. Tom had gone to get milkshakes to go with our lunch—I’d been so shaken at meeting the two Germans at Stones milk bar, I’d completely forgotten to order something to drink to go with our food. It was only when I’d walked into my office that I’d realised my mistake.

“You know, Harry, once I recovered my health after I’d been freed from the camp, the anger inside me was almost uncontrollable. That’s why I went to fight with the partisans … it was an outlet for the violence inside me, and …”

“And?”

I shook my head. I couldn’t bring myself to tell him how much I’d enjoyed getting my hands dirty. These days, I wasn’t proud of what I’d done, and, in normal times, there’d have been due process of law; but back then, with traitors and enemies still trying to hide in plain sight, there’d been no time for trials. There’d been times when I’d not been able to stand around and watch